A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge. Alice Gardner
an auxiliary agency may be mentioned which was of real service to young women desirous either of passing the new examination or simply of understanding how and what to read for their own benefit: the scheme of instruction by correspondence, started and kept vigorous for many years by the late Mrs. Peile, wife of the highly respected tutor and afterwards Master of Christ's College. Among the instructors by correspondence were many distinguished members of the University. The curricula were designed with a view to the requirements of the Higher Local Examination, but subjects were handled freely and suitable books were recommended. This last necessity was partly met by a loan library for women.
These steps were gradually leading up to a possible university education for women. At first sight, our beginnings may seem to have a non-academic and amateurish air. And part of what was accomplished in these early days would meet with scant approval from modern advocates of equal chances for women with men in learning and the learned professions. Inspection of schools by government is now by many regarded as a necessary evil. Popular courses of lectures without regular sequence or adaptation to the previous attainments of those who attend them suggest superficiality and lack of scientific method. Instruction by correspondence is by many associated with cram of the lowest sort. But to those who read the correspondence of the founders of these institutions, or whose memory carries them back to the days when they were not only novel but a very godsend to labourers at self-education, the whole movement wears a different aspect. All methods of imparting knowledge are apt to degenerate into tricks for hiding ignorance; even respect for universities and learned men may become mere toadyism. But the early forms, though now a little outworn, did indicate and partly supply a genuine need, and led on to even better things—especially to academic training and advanced study for women.
(5) The general movement towards university education, on the other hand, begins with the inauguration of a series of lectures in Cambridge itself, somewhat like that already started in the north, but wider in scope and capable of being continued for the instruction of women far beyond the educational standard prescribed by the Local Examinations. This had its beginning in a drawing-room meeting held in Prof. and Mrs. Fawcett's house, late in 1869.
If these beginnings seem less dignified than those of Colleges erected for students and organized from the first on University lines, it may be remarked that, after all, the beginnings of Newnham bear some analogy to those of the early European universities, including the English. Perhaps in all the greatest centres of learning there has been first the great teacher—then the scholars who flock to sit at his feet. Colleges and social student life and hostels and regulated grades of teachers and taught are an aftergrowth. So, we may say, the first Newnham students came to Cambridge because great teachers were there; it was not that suitable teachers came because the students had shown a demand for them or for collegiate houses and collegiate life. The university extension lecturers might be useful and stimulating missionaries of culture, but their greatest service was to kindle a desire to go and drink at the fountain-heads. The mountain could not come to Mahomet, but many touched by prophetic zeal might make all efforts to come to the mountain.
The first step taken as a result of the historic meeting referred to in Prof. and Mrs. Fawcett's house, was the formation of a society to be called the Association for promoting the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge.
The first executive consisted of Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Bonney, Mr. (Dr.) Peile, Prof. F. D. Maurice, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Bateson, Mrs. Fawcett, Mrs. Venn; the Secretaries were Mr. Markby and Mr. (afterwards Professor) Henry Sidgwick; the Treasurer Mrs. Bateson. Early in 1870, a list of lectures was brought out. Although these lectures were supposed to be for women reading for the Higher (then called the Women's) examination, they were given by men generally of the highest standing in the University, such as the university members of the Executive just mentioned, besides Professor Skeat, Prof. J. E. B. Mayor, Dr. Peile, Prof. Cayley, Dr. Venn, Mr. Marshall and other eminent persons. It may be that some of these lecturers were decidedly "over the heads" of such of the students as had had an indifferent schooling and were only just commencing adult study. But the fault—if such we should call it—was a good one. As a rule, the partly self-taught are more ready to grapple with difficulties than such as have hitherto had the paths of progress made gradual and easy; and the very fact of being more or less in contact with a master mind was rather stimulating than depressing.
These lectures were originally given in a building kindly lent by Mr. Clay, standing in the garden of his house a little off Trumpington Street.
Besides the lectures specially arranged in connection with the new scheme, a large number of lectures given by Professors of the University were, by their special permission, opened to women. In those days the professorial lectures formed, generally speaking, a less important part in the teaching of the University than they do at present. This was not, of course, due to any inferiority in such lectures, but to the want of correlation in the instruction provided by the several colleges and by the University. As this correlation became more effectual, the privilege given to women students of attending professorial lectures became more and more advantageous to them. Twenty-eight professors acceded to the request of the Association, as well as two lecturers who delivered their lectures in University buildings. University Professors and Lecturers were, generally speaking, bound to admit all members of the University to their lectures without fee, but were allowed to charge fees to non-members. Women students came, of course, under the second head, but as a rule the Professors admitted them without fee, as if they were of undergraduate status. The gradual opening up of lectures given on the Intercollegiate system in the halls or lecture-rooms of the various colleges began, as will be seen, a little later.
But besides the special lectures to women and the professorial lectures provided for members of the University, a very necessary element in Cambridge teaching consists in private tuition—of students taken individually or in small groups. In Classics and Mathematics, especially, such "coaching" is necessary both for backward and for advanced students. Among the earlier supporters of the Women's Education movement were a good many brilliant teachers who, in their generous belief in the cause, were ready to give instruction to women students often in a far more elementary stage than the men they ordinarily taught. Fees were naturally paid to the private teachers, but in many cases, while the cause was yet poor and struggling, these fees were returned to the Treasurer.
The students who required the more advanced lectures and tuition were generally those who, having passed the Women's Examination, aimed at a real University course. Tripos students were among the very first generation of Cambridge women—though those who read with a view to triposes could never feel quite sure, till near the end of their three years, whether the examiners would think it consistent with their functions to admit women and declare what class they attained.
This great object had already been approached on independent lines by the founders of Girton College. Miss Davies had conceived hopes of founding an actual college in which the Cambridge degree examinations, pass and honour, might be taken by women, and in 1869 such a college was started at Hitchin. The intellectual ideals and standards of the two wings—so to speak—of the movement were not identical. Time and with it changes in the demands of the degree examinations at Cambridge—indeed at both Universities—have brought them pretty close together. The very good reasons at the bottom of both programmes are easy to recognise. Miss Davies considered that any requirements made from women different from those demanded from men would certainly be lower. If women avoided Greek and the other subjects of which boys were supposed to learn something at school, an impression would be created that women were allowed graduate or quasi-graduate status on easier terms than those imposed on men. On the other side there was, in the minds of Sidgwick and others who became the founders of Newnham, a great contempt of the "Poll" as well as of the "Little-go" as marking a very low standard of intellectual achievement. At the same time, a more concrete mind like Miss Clough's deplored the inconvenience and waste of time which might keep an adult woman who had not learned classics or much mathematics at school, studying the beginnings of these subjects in school-boy fashion when her mind was more adapted to other studies. Again there was the fear—groundless enough as experience has proved—lest the girls' schools should be "classicized" and modern studies in them discouraged. In point of fact, Cambridge University now demands of candidates for the Previous Examinations only the very minimum of ancient languages,